1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is in Internet based medical telecommunications such as telemedicine.
2. Description of the Related Art
The general problem of providing patients with rapid access to appropriate medical specialists has been recognized for many years, and ever since the telephone was popularized, much time and effort has been expended in devising methods to deliver improved telemedicine service.
For example, more than 30 years ago, Dunn et. al., “An Evaluation of Four Telemedicine Systems for Primary Care”, Health Serv. Res. 1977, spring (12)(1), 19-29 discussed the utility of examining patients by video. In the 1990's, various client server implementations of telemedicine were also described by Vaughan et. al., “A Client/Server Approach to Telemedicine” in Proc. Annu. Symp. Comput. Appl. Med. Care. 1995: 776-780.
More recently, other workers have continued to refine or rediscover various telemedicine methods. For example, Ombrellaro, in US patent application 2005/0149364 discusses a telemedicine system with an integrated electronic medical record, and Chang, in US patent application 2005/0251421 discusses providing interpreter assisted video interpretation systems in a healthcare setting. More recently Schoenberg, in U.S. Pat. No. 7,590,550 teaches a computerized directory method of establishing an immediate real-time communications link between a patient and a physician.
In spite of these advances, telemedicine is still seldom used at present, suggesting that further progress is desirable. In particular, one problem that continues to limit patient access to medical care is the fact that at present, telemedicine systems are generally only authorized within the confines of a particular geopolitical area (e.g. geographic zone of healthcare provider licensing), such as a specific United States State, or a specific country. This limits patient access to only the healthcare providers that are located within the patient's particular geopolitical zone of residence. In the event that no healthcare providers with a suitable specialty, interest in providing telemedicine service, and availability schedule can be found within the patient's particular geopolitical zone of residence, then the patient's need for medical services may be frustrated.
At the same time, outside of the patient's particular geopolitical zone, there may be other healthcare providers who have the proper specialization, interest in providing telemedicine services, and who may have room in their schedule for another patient. Thus the present state of affairs for telemedicine is presently suboptimal due to the artificial constraints of the present geopolitical based system of healthcare provider licensing.